BUNKUR – NULLIFY (CD by Displeased Records)
TROUM – SIGQAN (CD by Transgredient Records) *
ANOTHER ANOTHER GREEN WORLD (CD compilation by Narrominded)
KIM CASCONE – ANTI-MUSICAL CELESTIAL FORCES (CD by Störung) *
ANTYE GREIE AKA AGF – EINZELKAMPFER (CD by AGF Produktion) *
YOKO HIGASHI & LIONEL MARCHETTI – OKURA 73N-42E (CD by Musica Genera) *
BLACK FEELINGS (CD by Alien8 Recordings) *
THE BEAUTIFUL SCHIZOPHONIC – EROTIKON (CD by Cronica Electronica) *
PIOTR KUREK – LECTURES (CD by Cronica Electronica) *
PTOSE/ERICKA IRGANON – PPPK 005 + PPPK 017 (CD by Infrastition) *
LAURENT PERNICE – DETAILS (CD by Infrastition) *
UN DEPARTMENT – LES III VINYLS (CD by Infrastition) *
THE TOBACCONISTS – THE DARK SECRETS OF DOCTOR PERATI / PROMETHEUS (7″ by Plinkity Plonk) *
KALLABRIS – MUSIC FOR VERY SIMPLE OBJECTS (10″ by Substantia Innominata)
OLHON – LUCIFUGUS (10″ by Substantia Innominata)
ASHBERRY – RESIN (CDR by Wounded Wolf) *
DOC WOR MIRRAN – A PORTRAIT OF YOUR DEATH (CDR by MissManagement) *
TUNER+ – LIVE IN OBLOMOVA (CDR, private) *
PHIL MOULDYCLIFF & COLIN POTTER – TRAJECTORIES (CDR by ICR) *
TAKU UNAMI – MALIGNITAT 2 (CDR by Free Software Series) *
XXXXX – IS-LAND (CDR by Free Software Series) *
SOIZIC LEBRAT & HEDDY BOUBAKER – ACCUMULATION D’ACARIATRES ACARIENS (CDR by Petit Label)
GUILLAUME VILTARD – RUNNING AWAY (CDR by Un Reve Nu)
JOSH – I AM WAKING UP (3″CDR by Envizagae Records) *
New MP3 releases
Announcements
BUNKUR – NULLIFY (CD by Displeased Records)
Metal has not been my scene since going out when I was 18 with friends to heavy metal bar, and only, on my part at least, since the beer was cheap. About this time last year I saw in Tilburg however a great band: Bunker, or Bunkur 13 as they are now called on myspace: four men with naked tops, one drummer, two bass players, a synthesizer player and vocalist playing metal. Just like ‘our’ scene (?) is fractured in all sorts of sub genres, so is metal, and perhaps I’m saying something utterly stupid, but Bunkur 13 play doom metal of the slowest kind. Since I know one of the bass players since… well, since my hardrock pub days (without him actually)… 1982… he gave me a copy of their second CD stating I should only hear this in its entire form, uninterrupted. Phone’s off, so let’s roll. Its one piece only, seventy-seven minutes of some very slow but very loud music. Play with great care and precision, in slow evolving bangs with lots and lots bass rumbling underneath – the synth is a bass synth too. The drums bang slowly and peacefully (?) with lots space in between, the singer sings (??) with the lowest howl possible. Metal is still not my cup of tea, but their concert last year I thought was impressive, and this CD is likewise massive. One firm block of concrete that weights a ton (or 2). I am pretty sure that this must be an odd-ball in the metal scene (unsubstantiated thought there). Bang those heads slowly (in). Great stuff. (FdW)
Address: http://www.displeasedrecords.com
TROUM – SIGQAN (CD by Transgredient Records)
In a way Troum are the masters of their scene – everything they touch seems to turn into gold, and if not the first time around, then perhaps a second time. ‘Sigqan’ was released in 2003 on Desolation House Records, which was a sub-division of Relapse Records, and has been out of print for a while. Now its being re-released again by Transgredient Records, Troum’s own label. That might say something about what the band thought of this. The material on this CD was based on a couple of live concerts they did in October 2001 with Ultrasound. No doubt the true Troum heads have this already, but for those who arrived a bit later, this is indeed Troum music as Troum music should sound. It is one steady stream of sound that, like good drugs, float immediately to one’s head. Dark, heavily atmospheric, but never a cliched form of ambient music. Guitars play an important part in the second piece (well, perhaps in all three, but I am not sure about that), which actually brings some light to the scenery. One could argue wether all Troum releases sound the same, which they don’t, but its certainly not a band to change their style a lot. And why should they? There is no reasons for it, and I think their output is not that big, so its easy for them to stick around in that same area. ‘Sigqan’ is a nice one indeed. Good to have back in print. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dronerecords.de
ANOTHER ANOTHER GREEN WORLD (CD compilation by Narrominded)
Before I could review this compilation, I had to go back to the original. The idea is this: Narrominded invited a bunch of musicians to cover Brian Eno’s ‘Another Green World’ – the whole album, each track by a different artist. They did such a scheme before with ‘Evol’ by Sonic Youth. I know ‘Another Green World’, but much to my regret I am not the biggest Eno-rock fan in the world. I prefer his instrumental work over his more rock oriented work. Now that I am hearing the original again, I think I should perhaps re-consider that. It much nicer than I remember, and not as rock-based. Eno here combines various styles, rock, ambient into a bunch of nice songs. Narrominded invited a whole bunch of Dutch artists, who mainly belong to the world of ‘beats and synthesizers’, to avoid such terms as techno, but if you know Legowelt, Rude 66 or Hydrus, you may know better. These people take the gist of a song and turn it into something else. And usually without vocals. I bet that if you’d play say Nanko’s version of ‘Little Fishes’ a dedicated Eno fan might have a problem spotting this as a cover thereof. In some cases one may be could. Its a nice compilation however, wether or not you love Eno. Maybe it side tracks the original too much here and there, or perhaps Eno’s genius is hard to passed by, but in all a nice one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.narrominded.com
KIM CASCONE – ANTI-MUSICAL CELESTIAL FORCES (CD by Störung)
Its been a while since I last heard something from Kim Cascone. I am sure he didn’t give doing music, but what the hell he was up to? Traveling most likely, roaming the earth with concerts. And going places, means recording places. That is what this new CD is about: field recordings, treated with computer generated sounds, and Cascone’s voice. Not that he started singing, but he’s doing a narration at the beginning. That, I think, is a bummer. I am usually not fond of singing, but also talking is not so my coffee. He mixes that with field recordings and the whole thing lasts under twenty-eight minutes. Its not a bad release, but its something that seems a bit too easy for me. A bunch of field recordings, some long wave recordings, some computerized stuff and that’s it. Not bad, but not much tension either, no real power that one could perhaps except from his long standing reputation. Easy listening – in every sense of the word. (FdW)
Address: http://www.storung.com
ANTYE GREIE AKA AGF – EINZELKAMPFER (CD by AGF Produktion)
Every now and then I receive a new CD by AGF aka Antye Greie (or Antye Greie aka AGF as it says on this cover), but I’m not sure if its then the follow-up to whatever thought was the previous, in this case ‘Words Are Missing’ (see Vital Weekly 611), or perhaps there have been other releases, which i missed on. So perhaps ‘Einzelkämpfer’ (sole warrior) is her fifth solo CD, and it sees a continuation of her previous work: electronic music and poetry, voices and language. Not always easy to understand what these words are about, but I guess that is Greie’s entire point. She creates images in sound, through sound and through words. I guess its like that with poetry: one can not always understand what a poem is about, but grasp the feeling. Greie’s music was at one point perhaps seen as an alternative for dance floor music, and perhaps there are still faint traces of that here, such as perhaps in ‘Her Beauty Kills Me’, but throughout most this new work, this is something you are better off listening on your own, at home, in private. Sometimes frightenly, sometimes beautifully, full of love, easy going or difficult. I am known not always like the music that deals with a strong emphasis on vocals, or even pure poetry stuff, but for the work of AGF I’d like to make an exception. Her work is a great combination of electronic music and spoken word/singing, which seem to be in an excellent balance here. Again, maybe a bit long for an entire CD of an hour, but a very fine work again. (FdW)
Address: http://www.poemproducer.com
YOKO HIGASHI & LIONEL MARCHETTI – OKURA 73N-42E (CD by Musica Genera)
With the letter M of Much Music, the M of Muslimgauze, Merzbow and Machinefabriek is also the M of Marchetti, Lionel, who is a very composer these days and with quite an amount of releases under his belt. Here he teams up with his partner Yoko Higashi, who is also an active composer of electronic music (with various releases on Entr’acte). They each have a solo piece and one collaborative. Marchetti uses sounds from the Stubnitz, the boat/venue from Rostock, along with some sine wave like sound and radio voices. In Higashi’s piece field recordings from Mozambique play an important role, along with various voices of different kinds and some electronic (analogue) processing. At almost sixteen minutes this is the longest piece on this CD. Curiously enough their collaborative piece is called ‘Petrole 42’ (Marchetti’s solo piece is ‘Petrole 73’), so its not difficult (or not to avoid) to see this piece as an extension of his solo piece. That I thought was a pity. Although the CD was quite nice, I also had the idea it was a bit of a filler – not the best work of Marchetti, but rather the need of getting one out. Still of a good quality, while not his best. (FdW)
Address: http://www.musicagenera.net
BLACK FEELINGS (CD by Alien8 Recordings)
Slowly Alien8 Recordings are transforming into a real pop/rock label. At least that’s what I think. Black Feelings is another new name on their roster, to play rock music with a daring edge. The label calls this ‘the band has developed a unique hybrid of the British post punk and experimental scenes that spawned the likes of This Heat, Gang Of Four and the Pop Group with heavy traces of psychedelic-goth and cold wave. Although perhaps this is another unVital release, I must say I quite enjoyed it, and perhaps its because I like the three bands mentioned in reference (all of which I must admit I don’t hear that well as an influence, but I guess that’s good). Bass, guitar/synth and drums/vocals is what the line up is about and the music sounds pretty retro, but in a sort of mash style of various genres. Heavy rock, sometimes even a bit symphonic, swollen and pathetic, but at times also with a bit of post-punk and indeed a bit of experiment (well, within the realms of rock that is, not perhaps by Vital’s standards). Not every track is great, ‘Aum Shinrikyo’ for instance is a bit too dark for me, and ‘Gails’ is a bit of slow bore, but the other six I thought were pretty alright. A good anti-dote for the regular Vital digest. (FdW)
Address: http://www.alien8recordings.com
THE BEAUTIFUL SCHIZOPHONIC – EROTIKON (CD by Cronica Electronica)
PIOTR KUREK – LECTURES (CD by Cronica Electronica)
Jorge Mantas, the man behind The Beautiful Schizophonic, is a romantic man – at least that’s what I think, as I never met him. For the press release he wrote a long text, dealing with erotics – and thus he creates a dreamworld of his own. His music, through the years he’s been active, is also of a romantic nature. String like computer sounds, a bit like Gas did, form the basis of all his compositions. Here he gets help from Yui Onodera, Sleeping Me and Christina Vantzou doing voices. Thus he carves out a fine niche of his own. Nothing abstract, nothing ‘nothing’, no mystery – just a plain guy (his own words) with a love for beautiful women and beautiful textured music. Ambient? Sure. Microsound? Of course. Something special? Mwah… no, not really. If you take the music face value, what is left is a beautiful woven tapestry of sound, very ambient, most suitable for long evenings near the fireplace. Nothing special. What makes it special is the context in which he brings us this music – that is a particular daring thing, to be so open about it. Nice indeed.
The other new CD is an odd-ball, certainly for a label like Cronica Electronica, who deal with laptop music and electronics. I have no clue as to what Piotr Kurek does to generate his music. Sometimes it seems like improvisations on acoustic percussion (such as in ‘Part 1’) but then something like ‘Tripartite’ could very well be a duet between accordion and laptop. The title refers to lectures given by Cornelius Cardew, who died in 1981, but whose son Walter has from lectures, performances and rehearsals. He handed them to Kurek, who used them in this work. An odd-ball, that brings up some questions, like what the relation is between the spoken word pieces by Cardew and the music by Kurek. Just inspired? Or is the music from Kurek all so spontaneous as Cardew wanted? Why not just add those as liner notes? In some cases music and talking mixes, which is nice, such as in ‘1963’, but when the talking is ‘solo’, it turned me a bit off. However the music here is quite nice. A most curious mixture of laptop music (I assume) and improvisation makes this something that is not heard often. Great one. (FdW)
Address: http://www.cronicaelectronica.org
PTOSE/ERICKA IRGANON – PPPK 005 + PPPK 017 (CD by Infrastition)
LAURENT PERNICE – DETAILS (CD by Infrastition)
UN DEPARTMENT – LES III VINYLS (CD by Infrastition)
Although we review the occasional re-issue when it comes around, there is ], out there, a whole market for labels that are just doing re-issues of old works that somehow don’t make it to these pages. For instance Les Temps Modernes unearthing lots of music from Factory Records and Les Disques Du Crepscule, and in France there is the Infrastition label. They released, among others, the works of Das Wesen, a band from Vital’s hometown, which was great – even if just for me.
From their catalogue they send me three albums,
which they thought might be of interest for our readers, and yes, they are. The first release deals with two re-issues from the Ptose label, by Ptose and Ericka Irganon. Ptose, a French group from the early to mid 80s, which were always called the French answer to The Residents, a connection that I somehow failed to see. Sure, they share the same weirdness, but throughout I think Ptose were more electronic and more pop, with a big twist. Sequencer driven, with weird keyboard melodies, and odd vocals. On this CD they have an early tape, ‘Handmade Electronics’ (from 1981). Relatively short songs at work here, and in the live rendition of ‘Boule’ (one of their best known songs), a guitar and drums pop up. On ‘Le Rat d’Hotel’ by one Ericka Irganon the analogue sound has moved on from the strict analogue synthesizer, to more complex structures, better drum machine, electric piano. Updated to the sound of those days I’d say, but it lost some of that rough early edge (which people these days might like better, I assume), but still brings out nice, even more dark pop tunes. I never figured out, then and now, what the difference was between Ptose and Irganon, but this is a great re-issue.
Nox member Laurent Pernice released his first LP ‘Details’ in 1989 on Permis de Construire, an album which I missed out upon back then. Since then he has been quite active in music, although just one work was reviewed in Vital Weekly, ‘Humus – Musique Immobiles 5-15’ in Vital Weekly 429. The three preceding parts of ‘Musique Immobiles’, 1 to 3 are also on the re-issue of ‘Details’ (I have no idea whatever happened to number 4). On his first album, I think he uses sampling, which back then wasn’t a very common place for people to use. In the sampler goes various recordings of instruments, such as percussion, guitar and violin or cello. Then he creates pieces of music with that. Sometimes a bit crude, dark poptunes like, such as in the strongly percussive ‘Chanson D’Amour’, including sampled metal percussion. This is the kind of music from a transitional period: musicians with a background in pop (however out of pop they were) moving into a territory of composition with common instruments and new techniques. This record is a nice souvenir from that era.
Completely gone, I think, are the members of Un Department. They released a cassette on Illusion Production, the label of DDAA, but apparently also three pieces of vinyl. They are collected on a CD here. One 12″ single, one 7″, one LP, a compilation track (from ‘Voices Notes Noise’) and an unreleased piece from 1982. This is altogether a different thing. Un Department is a trio of Phil gaz, Marcel Kanche and Bruno Tollard and their music comes from a rock angle, albeit a more experimental and improvised one. They have, I think, drums, guitar, bass and synthesizer at their disposal and use voices. Its weirdness but not for the sake of weirdness, but to do something different in rock music, coming very much from post-punk and No New York, but without the aggression or violence. They instead borrow elements from European folk music, electronic music and mix it together with improvised rock elements. Maybe a bit This Heat like, or such older English bands, but it has a great style of its own. I never heard any of these records back then, but this twenty song collection is a great gem from the past. None of these three a big on liner notes, which is perhaps the only downside of these otherwise most welcome re-issues. (FdW)
Address: http://www.infrastition.com
THE TOBACCONISTS – THE DARK SECRETS OF DOCTOR PERATI / PROMETHEUS (7″ by Plinkity Plonk)
The Tobacconists are no other than Frans de Waard (some of you may have heard of him) and Scott Foust (some of you may have heard of him as well), both of them notorious smokers and versatile musicians. The first quality is aptly expressed in the design based on Russia’s cheapest pack of smokes, Belamor Kanal: very nice indeed. The last quality is expressed aptly as well on this 7″. The side called ‘The dark secrets of doctor Perati’ is a kind of drony piece with long stretched synth sounds, but layered in that are all kinds of acoustic elements, varying from squeaking doors (?) to rhythmic pulses and with a great ending! The other side, ‘Prometheus’, sounds more open and dynamic, almost like a radioplay. The combination of both sides works well and offers a good impression of what
these two smokers can achieve. Certainly just as good as their 3″! (MG)
Address: http://www.kormplastics.nl
KALLABRIS – MUSIC FOR VERY SIMPLE OBJECTS (10″ by Substantia Innominata)
OLHON – LUCIFUGUS (10″ by Substantia Innominata)
The latest two releases in Drone Records’ series Substantia Innominata are by Olhon and Kallabris. Especially the latter is good news, as over the years I have been liking their work more and more. And the more I like it, the less I understand it, if in fact there is something to understand at all. This 10″ with some cryptic text about the Unspeakable, The Unnameable, dealing with ‘the grey matter”, “the dark continent’ is a most puzzling work. Small pieces, flowing into eachother, of field recordings, bits of music, some weird indoor sounds, cracks and all such like is brought to you in a collage form. No drone like sounds, but rather a work of musique concrete. Like the RLW release before in this series, maybe an odd-ball, but a rather nice odd-ball. Simple objects? Perhaps. Great music they bring.
In more traditional Drone Records land is the release by Olhon, which is a collaboration between Bad Sector and Where, who recorded a bunch of sounds in an abandoned large metal water tank in Italy. These recordings have been processed a bit (well, or to a large extend), and sound like something we should expect on this series. Metallic rumble, computerized overdrive moved all the way to the background, some voices humming: creepy ambient industrial music. The rattling of insects – or perhaps the death rattle of insects? I haven’t seen the water tank, but its size is made audible here, that’s for sure. Spooky stuff, but also with enough experiment in them, which prevent the listener from getting sucked into this maelstrom of sound. Not as good as the Kallabris one, but then I might have an opinion that belongs a minority. (FdW)
Address: http://www.dronerecords.de
ASHBERRY – RESIN (CDR by Wounded Wolf)
Only twenty-five copies have been made of this: one could ask why bother, or why not make more of them? Is the music not that good that only two hands full should be out? The website reads something about “handmade card-box in a bag of linen with natural ephemera attached to it. Leaves , birch , pieces of corks and such.”, but no such thing with my copy. I do like to see the real thing (www.vitalweekly.net.fga.html to see how to submit promo’s, which doesn’t include sending an e-mail: can I send a promo?, like so many seem to be doing). I hear some string sounds, piano and natural events. Oddly I was reminded of an early eighties group called New 7th Music, which no doubt not a lot will remember, but who had the same tranquility and the same sense of using acoustic instruments. Music that doesn’t force itself upon the listener, but rather sets the mood, an atmosphere is created, and a very nice atmosphere it is. A free form Arvo Part, totally uncomposed, but with the same melancholic stretch. A pity that neither Ashberry nor Wounded Wolf seems to be interested in a somewhat bigger audience. (FdW)
Address: http://woundedwolf.wordpress.com
DOC WOR MIRRAN – A PORTRAIT OF YOUR DEATH (CDR by MissManagement)
Something I didn’t know, or perhaps just didn’t realize, is that Doc Wor Mirran is an active band, a very active one, but all of their work is studio work. In all of their twenty-five years of existence they played three concerts, including this one recorded on November 12th 2007 in Koln, Germany and the John Peel festival. The line up consists of Ralf Lexis (guitar, samples), Joseph B. Raimond (bass) and Adrian Gromley (alto sax, bass clarinet, clarinet, RC-50 loop station). The samples Lexis uses here consist of the many tapes people send to Doc Wor Mirran over the years, such as Asmus Tietchens, Conrad Schnitzler, Rat Scabies, Paul Lemos or Genesis P-Orridge. This forty minute concert is quite a pleasant one, seeing Doc Wor Mirran going krautrock. The rhythm machine ticks away time in a very linear fashion. Mechanical, motorik, Neu like, while the three players play around that, in a sort of endless jam fashion, while keeping things straight. Every now and then voices from the tapes pop up, like the spoken word intro of Frank Abendroth (which, I must admit, sounds a bit silly) or communist choir music. Laidback but uptempo, this is music to work by, as it has a great energy to it. Excellent production, which hardly sounds ‘live’ at all. Excellent work, which made me wonder: why don’t they play out more concerts? (FdW)
Address: http://www.dwmirran.de
TUNER+ – LIVE IN OBLOMOVA (CDR, private)
Not much information to go by here. Two guys, Tonino Taiuti and Maurizio Argenziano, both on electric guitar, three tracks, all recorded live. The opening piece ‘TM’ is a heavy distorted guitar cum feedback piece. Eleven minutes of mayhem, but its not well spend on me. The other two tracks (eleven and sixteen minutes) are of much more interest: quiet, intense improvisations, like a case of suppressed noise, which towards the end of ‘MVT’ is getting a bit of real noise, but somehow it never bursts out. These two tracks are pretty good and solid, and it would have been enough for me, and ‘TM’ could have been left off. Also on the CDR is a video of this concert, which seems to me a fourth piece, again, like ‘TM” of full noise blast for the first two minutes, but the true power lies in seeing them manipulate their guitars and a strange act of a weightlifter. Curious. (FdW)
Address: <silenzifree@yahoo.it>
PHIL MOULDYCLIFF & COLIN POTTER – TRAJECTORIES (CDR by ICR)
Not right on the list ‘places I need to have seen’, but Christmas Island: yeah, if I’m around, why not (Easter Island is actually on top of that list). One David Carson and Phil Mouldycliff have been to the Christmas Island where they recorded a whole bunch of sounds, all of which are carefully mentioned, per track, on the cover: Frigate birds, Red footed Boobies, Cicadas, Emerald Doves, White Eyes, Christmas Is. Trush, Abbots Boobies or the Imperial Pigeon, well, among others, actually. Also locations are described on the cover, and back home (I assume), Mouldycliff composed pieces of music with these recordings, which Colin Potter then ‘processed and produced’, which allows him the same front cover credit, I guess. It makes it, on the other hand, not easy to tell what is what here: what is Mouldycliff composition and what is Potter’s processing and production. There is lots more mentioned on the cover, such in the ‘Trajectories 1’ there is a ‘time stretch voice Soloist’, which I must say sounds a bit like an easy trick. All four pieces use bird sounds, but the results aren’t always the same. The first ‘Trajectories’ use this time stretched voice, whereas in the second there just bird and bell sounds and things sound rather open. In this third part drones return in a very peaceful fashion, along with the birds. With twenty-four minutes the best part of the release. In the final part there are also drones but of a much more darker nature. Four quite different pieces of music, of which the first one was the least appealing one, but the other three sounded great. Excellent drone music with field recordings – or vice versa. (FdW)
Address: http://www.icrdistribution.com
TAKU UNAMI – MALIGNITAT 2 (CDR by Free Software Series)
XXXXX – IS-LAND (CDR by Free Software Series)
Its been a while since we last heard from Mattin and his Free Software Series, or perhaps we missed out on a few. The idea is simple: there is free audio software out there to generate music, and that’s basically what these composers do. Taku Unami is perhaps a bit known already for his work in the field of improvised music, and he is quite a radical voice in that scene with a strong love for extreme quietness. Here he uses ‘Kluppe, PD, Ardour on Debian’, which I guess means a lot for the initiated, but not for me. His thirty-six minute piece is an odd one. It has various lengthy bits of silence and otherwise dwells on solo sounds. Dry sounds of electronic origin. Clicks, hiss, static – that sort of thing, but never working around using plug ins. Towards the end things explode into a noise thing, which cuts out as abruptly as they start. A radical work, I’d say, one that requires all your concentration. A strange composition, but surely a captivating one.
The cover for XXXXX’s ‘Is-Land’ lists ‘GNU/Linux, GNU Emacs, GCC, EVP, Audicity under Debian (testing)’ and inside a lengthy text on magic, ghostly voices and such like. Hard to figure what this is all about. The music is pretty much based on static hiss, cable hum and perhaps other sorts of interference picked up in an empty room. The noise at work is quite nice, but in the three lengthy pieces also a bit overlong. The six other pieces seem to have the length they fit, somewhere between two and five minutes, which is absolutely fine to get the idea across (ok, so I lie here: its all a bit unclear to me what this release is about. But aside of that, I must admit its the sort of noise I like: not too loud, not always loud and maybe with some consideration. Download this software and start toying around – I believe that’s also a message from this label. Do it yourself in the digital age. (FdW)
Address: http://www.freesoftwareseries.org
SOIZIC LEBRAT & HEDDY BOUBAKER – ACCUMULATION D’ACARIATRES ACARIENS (CDR by Petit Label)
GUILLAUME VILTARD – RUNNING AWAY (CDR by Un Reve Nu)
Two CDRs of improvised music from France, both from relatively young musicians. Heddy Boubaker is a musician from the south of France. He started on electric guitar playing in rock bands, but switched to alto and baritone sax doing improvised music and sound research. Soizic Lebrat comes from Nantes. Both are new names for me. But listening to their CDR one can only conclude that they already have a history behind them. Very accomplished players with an enormous vocabularies. Their improvisations are fantastic duets, very fluid and subtle. Very rich and concentrated sound improvisations, constantly moving and shifting, showing different sides of their talent and musical vision. Improvised music at its best. Chapeau! Only 100 were made of this live recording (april 2008 in Toulouse).
Petit Label has a very small catalogue. Un Rêve Nu is even smaller, with ‘Running Away’ as the first and only release till now. We find the CD slabbed between two parts of wood, that have photos on the inside, and handmade paintings on the outside. Both pieces of wood are held together by magnets. Nice work! The music on this CD comes from Guillaume Viltard, another young french improvisor. He played with Boubaker, Lebrat and many other improvisors. He developed already at a young age a love for improvised music (CecilTaylor). In 2003 he did his fist soloperformance. I’m not sure, but I suppose ‘Running Away’ is his first solorecord of doublebass improvisations. Some of the recordings were done in the open air, in the woods of Bouconne to be more precise. The other ones in some studio. Viltard proves himself as an improvisor with many extended techniques to his disposal. His music is from time to time very introspective, making it difficult to enjoy. But there are also many fantastic eruptions of soundimprovisation to be enjoyed here. The recordings that were done in the woods leave much room for the birds and environment, although it goes too far to speak of a dialogue with nature. On the other hand in my mind these outside recordings created the phantasy that the sounds produced by Viltard come from a horde of insects. (DM)
Address: http://www.petitlabel.com / http://unrevenu.free.fr
JOSH – I AM WAKING UP (3″CDR by Envizagae Records)
There is no information to go by here. Just one Josh, who recorded five tracks. Pieces of rhythm oriented music, with some synths, voice samples and some sound effects. Not real techno based, but maybe a bit at the weirdo end of IDM. I can’t say it’s good or great by any standard, but somehow it all went a bit past by me. Maybe its the brief character of such a release, but certainly also has something to do with the music itself. Some experiment (such as in ‘Piano Truth’), a bit of melancholy, working around with loops of sound and rhythm, but it all stayed a bit too much in a common place, a bit face- as well as directionless. This calls for some serious thinking and decision making. What does he want, which direction? I don’t know, its a decision I can’t make for him. Anything would be good, I guess, but it needs more thinking for sure. (FdW)
Address: http://www.envizage.de
New MP3 releases:
1. From: Harco Rutgers <harco@escrec.com>
Transfolmer – Remixes
This release is a compilation of tracks Transfolmer has made together with or inspired by artists he met online (mostly on myspace). A collection of remixes if you will. And a fine collection at that. Melancholy oozes out of every song (again). All new influences, sounds and voices on this release enrich and replenish Transfolmer’s sound. Leaving you with a warm (and free) soundtrack for the fall.
More info and download here: <http://www.escrec.com/category/escrec24>